Overlord

20

The cavern had dropped into a quiet stillness, the entire team asleep or dozing. He had no way to track the passage of time down here, but Dig O’Donnell was fairly certain it must be night in the real world above. They had been exploring, sampling, discovering, for hours. Sol Griffin was right to call a rest period, and it was the perfect opportunity for Dig. While everyone else slept, he had read key passages from At The Mountains Of Madness again. He was convinced these were those mountains. Lovecraft was a master storyteller, no one could argue that, but the man was a prophet, too. It took aesthetes like Dig to see that, to recognize the man’s greatness and his treatises.

Dig looked around again, to ensure that everyone slept. Even Reid and his two armed cronies, Tate and Gates, sat back against the walls of the tunnels they guarded, weapons across their knees, eyes closed. He thought they were only dozing, ready to act in an instant, but if he remained quiet, they wouldn’t notice. He crept unnoticed over to where Jahara Syed lay sleeping. Careful to make no noise, he looked through the biologist’s samples. He found what he was looking for, holding the small jar up into the green glow of the cavern. A small fish, maybe two inches long, swam confused circles around the confined space. Its flesh was pale white, almost translucent, the bones of its tiny skeleton clearly visible. It had a semblance of eyes, that glowed softly green, and a brighter green stripe along each side of its narrow body.

He had been sure from the start that the life down here was connected with what he sought. He’d always known there was a measure of truth to the story Lovecraft penned, facts and real events underlying the fiction. And those facts further revealed by the subsequent stories of other prophets like Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth. These men were aesthetes too, channeling cosmological truths.

Dig had seen Aston and Slater huddled together over something and had sidled into the next alcove of rock, unseen, but close enough to hear Aston’s voice as the Australian quietly read aloud. And that had convinced him. That account had been the final corroboration. All the proof he needed. His fears had melted in the face of evidence. The explorer, Professor Murray Lee, had not been losing his mind. The voice he reported hearing was very real, and still here, Dig was certain of that. It was, after all, eternal. And in order to hear that voice himself, he needed to commune with the life of this magnificent place.

He licked his lips, checked around himself again. Everything still, everyone quiet in slumber. He unscrewed the lid of Syed’s sample jar, took a deep steadying breath, then drank down the contents. He crunched the wriggling fish once between his teeth, tasted a jet of bitterness, then swallowed it all down with the hard, mineral-tasting water. He shuddered, whether from disgust or anticipation he couldn’t honestly say, but a joy thrilled through him nonetheless. He slipped the empty jar back into Syed’s bag, then sat quietly, waiting. Genesis Galicia’s story about Spedding made perfect sense. That and the words of the journal had all coalesced into a solid and perfect course of action. All his frustrations slipped away, now he had finally figured out the process. He licked his lips again, still tasting the bitterness of the unfortunate fish, but anticipation made the discomfort worthwhile. He sat waiting, willing the connection to rise, the magic to happen.

Nothing. His elation began to morph into anger and frustration. Why not him? Was he not deserving? Nonsense! Who among them could possibly be more deserving? Perhaps that Genesis Galicia, Jen, knew more than she was letting on. What about the story of her colleague had she omitted in the telling?

The woman lay alone, sleeping to one side of the large space, thankfully far from any of the dozing guards. Dig carefully crept around glowing stalagmites and crouched beside her. He would not be denied now, not when he was this close. He pressed one hand over her mouth and the other tightly around her throat. She startled awake, eyes bulging wide in shock. Dig leaned close, almost near enough to have kissed her if he wanted.

“Quiet! Don’t make a sound, okay?”

Eyes still wide, tinged with panic, she nodded rapidly.

“Tell me everything you know about what lives down here! Tell me what you left out!” His voice was an urgent hiss.

Her brows scrunched together and she shook her head.

Dig lifted his hand slightly from her mouth. “Why not? Tell me!”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she said in a harsh whisper. “I don’t understand, I told you everything.”

She drew a breath, as of she were about to scream, and Dig slammed his hand back over her mouth, felt her lips grind against her teeth. She grunted in pain. “I’ll kill you if you raise the alarm, you hear me?”

She nodded again, tears in her eyes.

“You must know more. Tell me.”

She seemed to think for a minute, then nodded again. Dig gently lifted his hand, ready to slam it back if she screamed. He wasn’t lying. He was more than prepared to kill her. A kind of ecstatic rage rushed through him, made his heart pound.

“I swear, I know nothing more about the creatures than what I already told you,” she said tightly, quietly. “But there’s a shrine, with weird pictographs. Maybe you can understand that better than we could? We didn’t have long to look at it before we were attacked.”

“Where is it?”

Jen raised one hand, pointing across the lake to one of the tunnels on the far side of the cavern. “That passage. After a long way, maybe ten minutes walking, it forks. Take the left fork.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I remember.”

Dig smiled, a new certainty rising in him. Yes, she was right. That’s what he needed, of course. He was being tested. He needed to prove himself, unravel the clues, prove himself worthy. Then another thought occurred to him as he looked down at Jen’s terrified face. As soon as he moved away from her, she was certain to scream for help. He wouldn’t make it more than five paces. Well, no matter, he had what he needed. Before she could react, he put one leg over her body and sat heavily on her, pinning her arms to her sides with his knees. He was twice her size, covering her easily, trapping her legs down with his feet. He leaned his weight forward, one palm over her mouth and with the other he squeezed her nose shut. Her eyes bulged further, panic in her darting eyes as muffled screams erupted from her. He lay over her more heavily, constricting movement, air, and sound alike. She thrashed against him, tried to buck, but he was twice her weight as well and, weakened as she was, she had no chance of dislodging him. Her struggles became weaker, her eyes rolled up and closed. She tried one last time, then fell still.

“Diiiggbyyy…”

Dig startled, sat up, looked frantically around. But everything remained still, the team still slept. Jen was inert beneath him. The guards dozed.

“Diiiiiiiggbyyyyyy…”

The voice was in his head. It was happening! He called.

Elated, dizzy, Dig rose silently and crept across the cavern on silent feet, heading for the tunnel to the shrine.